Running Water
by makinlovetomyvibes
Summary: "how do you turn a forest fire like me so soft I turn into running water" Raffryn fluff inspired by Rupi Kaur. Raffe's POV. Poetry is not my own.


**a/n:** ok so this is a lot different from anything I've written before. It was inspired by a few poems all by Rupi Kaur. It's very fluffed up and uses a lot of flowery language so enjoy I guess lol (also sorry the poems are all double spaced, they weren't like that in my google doc so idk man)

/ / / /

 _how do you turn_

 _a forest fire like me_

 _so soft I turn into_

 _running water_

/ / / /

Rain was pattering against the window when I woke. Gray light spilled into the dark room through the blinds. It left shadows on the skin of the daughter of man sprawled across my chest. She was sound asleep, her face as relaxed as it gets, only when her worries are too slow to catch up with the moment.

I traced her spine at the small of her back where her shirt had ridden up, ran my hand down the back of her thigh. She buried her face deeper into my chest and made a small kitten-like noise in her throat.

It was funny how things worked. We were supposed to be enemies, I even told her that myself. She wasn't supposed to trust me, but she almost got herself killed too many times to count _because_ she trusted me. And now, I was the only one she let her guard down for.

And we weren't just coexisting. Our lives have become so intertwined that we barely blink at the fact that we can't sleep well without the other next to us.

We would fall asleep next to each other every night: partially clothed, no guard up, nightmares more often than dreams, all vulnerability. But if it was, vulnerable felt less bare than I remembered it. No, what I had with Penryn felt like a warm embrace in the middle of a snow storm; we had built a home in each other.

She shifted in her sleep, wrapping her leg around mine, entangling us even more. My hands found the dips below her hips where the bones didn't quite meet.

/ / / /

 _I need someone_

 _who knows struggle_

 _as well as I do_

 _someone_

 _willing to hold my feet in their lap_

 _on days is too difficult to stand_

 _the type of person who gives_

 _exactly what I need_

 _before I even know I need it_

 _the type of lover who hears me_

 _even when I do not speak_

 _is the type of understanding_

 _I demand_

/ / / /

She was strong, not as invincible as she thought she was, but not as fragile as she looked. She had scars that were prevalent in the gray light; whether they were from childhood clumsiness or from fighting for her life, most I didn't know. She had a purple bruise on the side of her thigh the size of my palm from when she lost balance doing a yoga pose the other day and fell into the kitchen table. The knuckles on her left hand were swollen from a sloppy left-handed punch at whoever the last person to piss her off was.

Penryn was irrational sometimes. She was a stubborn fool most of the time.

But she was my stubborn fool, my loyal daughter of man.

Her stubbornness caused half of our unimportant, domestic squabbles. I couldn't blame her all that much because I caused the other half.

The fights that pulled on us weren't really fights at all. They were staying up way too late with the feeling of dread in our stomachs thinking about the inevitable truths, like her morality, or the fact that we couldn't even think of having kids in the future unless we wanted to run from hellions for the rest of our lives. It was usually her telling me to stop talking and me asking if she was okay, to which she would respond with tears.

But Penryn was emotionally strong, considering everything. And our relationship was so much more than others, I would hesitate to call it such a common word like relationship. We had been to hell and back for each other, literally and figuratively. She wasn't even from the same world as I was, but she understood me more than any one of my own could.

/ / / /

 _my favorite thing about you is your smell_

 _you smell like_

 _earth_

 _herbs_

 _gardens_

 _a little more_

 _human than the rest of us_

/ / / /

She let out a small sigh and stretched so that she was facing me, her lips closer to my collarbone.

She reminded me of the twins pet cat she had taken care of for a few days while they were away. The cat would meow and make tiny noises and Penryn would ogle and cuddle him until he fell asleep on her.

I kissed her hair, breathing her in. She smelled like sleep fresh out of the shower, the smell of her soaps wearing off enough for her natural scent to break through.

I interlaced my fingers with the back of hers that she left lazily on my hip. I ran my thumb on the back of her hand before she pulled her hand away and let out another sleepy protest.

She was an echo of the weather behind the glass panes, hazy, too tired to do anything other than what she was presently doing. It was calming, just the sound of our breaths in the quiet room mingling with the sound of the upbringings of a storm outside. I wondered if we could stay in bed all day, dozing together in the place between sleep and not being fully aware of the outside world.

/ / / /

 _you've touched me_

 _without even_

 _touching me_

/ / / /

I brushed my lips against her forehead, trailing my fingers up her shirt and up her spine again. She stretched her limbs in resemblance to a cat (again) and inhaled.

She exhaled with a "Raffe," on her lips and broke the silence with a voice rough from sleep. She lazily kissed the base of my neck as good morning before kissing my lips. She had hesitated a moment to feel the tingle that was still present before planting a sleepy, sloppy kiss on me.

She was warm, like being under the covers of our bed all day instead of venturing out into the cold rain. She backed off but I pulled her back against me.

"Raffe," Penryn sighed.

"Just a few more minutes, okay?"

And she settled back into me, leaving lazy kisses and traces across my skin in her wake. It was calming, soft, our breaths and hushed voices in the quiet room, stalling the moment, while a storm passed outside.


End file.
